Valiant Splinters
by Zaedah
Summary: I am indeed dead, for the sound, like the howl of the devil, blesses me with its gift. COMPLETE.
1. Robin

Please be forewarned, this is not a cheerful piece. Nor is it a Robin/Marian romance. Forgive Zaedah this sidestep and enjoy all the same.**  
**

**Valiant Splinters**

There are splinters.

Guarding the window frame with tiny swords raised against my invasion, several shoots of aged wood are crushed under my weight. Heavy clothing shields me from the worst of their valiant defenses and I steal into her room essentially unhindered. The late autumn winds whisper that I shouldn't be here. I hear their grieving moans as they circle the property, whimpering sighs for a lost son. I can be nowhere else. The other knows this, lighting a candle before I slip inside.

Betrayal comes in many guises; the worst is the cover of friendship. Hours could be spent dissecting the event, its missed clues and the impending, long-reaching results. However, my mind has retained only enough function to send the body below it to her bed. Beaten by treachery, faith has surrendered to craven, carnal impulses. She does not refuse me, displaying such eagerness to participate in my own betrayal of all who put confidence in my righteousness.

I am no stranger to the descent into base passions. The Holy Land offered such variety of indecent activities that even the chastest Crusader succumbed to the call of heathen lusts. The foreign pleasures presented mindless refuge from the undefined battlefields and fresh horrors that surfaced daily and lingered like rancid incense. Blood, that most life-bearing of human liquids, left stains that sanctified water cannot cleanse. Pleading penance in the abandoned temples works no miracles on the soul, for the blood of others mingles with my own to convince me of my sins.

Much warned of the evils, but those exotic women of Jerusalem could coax and tease me into a moment of forgetting; a temporary gift punctuating the spilling of blood. I entered into death there. I feel no more alive here.

Returning to the land of my ancestors purged none of the pulsing needs that strike in combination with harsh events. I foolishly hoped that beholding my family home, the grasses and sky and villages, would abate the tidal waters of wickedness. Nightmares drove me from my father's house that first night and into her ready arms. A different physical expression took place between us than the fumbling teenage explorations I remembered. Once banished to the forest, the frequency of visits only increased with any new disappointments, each near-disaster and every night terror. I have never arrived in joy or celebration. My selfish reasons become her purpose, attempting to heal as a physician might.

Blessedly discreet, she is a liberator seeking no reward. My depravity resides in her secret haven, locked in a box only she can locate. Gnawing mistrust of the world is left outside her window, snagged and held by the very splinters that bade me return to the forest. Safety of trees and loyalty of men, both so recently fickle, cannot contend with her steady skill; alternately gentle and aggressive in response to the moment. Forgetting is the goal, whether achieved in tender caress or violent coupling. We are never made one in the process, forgoing the traditional view of a union of souls when bodies meet. And we never kiss. That sweet gesture is reserved for another.

Looking upon Marian in the light of day, I see such an independent flame tempered by choking innocence. It suffocates me more than her. She is not ready to receive the burden of my soul, singed by the fire of Jerusalem. Maid Fitzwater has my heart, the heart that wears the form of a younger Locksley. The window's owner has my body, the body tinted in a soldier's murderous red. The other is not threatened by Marian's place in my life, knowing she supplies a service the noble woman could not.

Tonight she waits by the light of a rapidly fading candle to erase the fury of a friend's disloyalty. Tomorrow the benefit will be as a tornado; an invisible force evidenced only by the remaining destruction. For my spirit shreds a little more with each visit.

She sees our dark acts as a statement to those who oppress. Clearing the rebellion leader's mind with a freely given gift is her contribution to the cause. If this is true, then my cause is lost. How can I hope to defeat those who abuse the populace while stealing virtue from one of its daughters? Who dares to appear the knight and savior of those whose eyes cannot see the savage impurity under the armor of pretense?

When splinters are all that protest the arrival, what power of resistance can be summoned by a desperate man? I desecrate her tonight and she screams her bliss at the defilement. I am indeed dead, for the sound, like the howl of the devil, blesses me with its gift.


	2. Lover

**Valiant Splinters**

The wax has spilled.

Candlelight throws flickering shapes upon sparse walls, the stirring wind of night unkind in its persistence. Having relit the wick more than once while in waiting, I have scolded the coarsely formed pillar into behaving for the moment. The flame bends but holds in obedience. Long-practiced patience ensures my feet do not pace, my fingers do not fiddle and my mind does not race.

He will be here. The wind carries his urgency ahead of the arrival.

I no longer have the benefit of parental advice, the suffocating poverty stealing their breath last year. This land has become barren, having neither crops nor seeds to thirst for the summer rains. Thus I live at the mercy of others. The men of the forest supplied a portion for the coming winter and my mother's rationing wisdom, having been passed to her only child, will see me through. Should a need arise, the leader of the woodsmen shall provide in some measure. He will not refuse me, because my provisions to him are worth more than a few loaves.

To defile the house of my forefathers in such repeated fashion should prompt a falling to knees in a mournful sinner's prayer. I often anticipate a stabbing of the heart with the knife of guilt, but have been spared the blade. I look to the threadbare sheets that will bear the effects of tonight's tryst but have no thought to burn them, as weaker women are rumored to do. They will be cleansed but quickly returned to the bed, pure as the fabric of clergy.

Penance is never sought for the acts committed beneath the Lord's heavenly hosts. Only wish I the pardon of my father's spirit, which I have so surely vexed throughout this meager life. Because no child has been born. None will be born. He wanted for me the higher climb into society that his work-roughened hands could not grasp. Producing a child to a noble, regardless of marital state, would secure some hope of future comfort.

But there is no fortune to gain at present, no inheritance for an illegitimate offspring to demand. Perhaps that is why he comes to me. There will be no evidence of our transgressions. He knows my lips are bound by the seal of childhood trust. Preserved as true and untampered as the sheriff's cruel ordinances in Gisbourne's hand. Never will I break the wax to spill the contents of our truth. And all the village men know of my barrenness, a situation they find to their convenience. Though I will not decline the added income, there remains a yearning for life to reside in this body. Yet I fear even my own life does not live within. Alone in the quiet night, I am as a corpse; still-lovely flesh decomposing in the coffin of my family home.

In the soldier's reemergence from the fearsome lands abroad, a purpose has finally been discovered. Those who tyrannize our lands have recently begun to pay. Lacking position and influence, I cannot affect change for myself and have long endured the burden of a spinster's uselessness. But he gives me a function, one I can supply despite empty pockets and bare shelves. He makes them pay and in my donations, I jab back at those who eye me with distaste. The destitute, they call the poor. But in time, he will redistribute their riches and we shall reap the rewards. In battling his demons with my physical aptitude, he leaves my bed more fit to wage war upon those who steal my options in life. It makes their disgusted glares easier to tolerate.

It occurs to me that I only light one candle in unconscious deference to his unspoken inclination. It is perhaps my acknowledgement that he may think of another more readily if he cannot distinguish my features. Accepting this seems like permission, but I am strong enough to grant it. There is no question whose face I might wear in his mind. It does not stop me anymore than his refusal to kiss.

As thoughts have spurned my mind to wander, my hand has grown unsteady in anticipation. Only the hot drippings of wax upon my bare foot alert me to the angle my inattentive grasp has lent the candlestick. Naturally, the shift in position has made my tiny flame a victim of the insolent wind and the fire is defeated yet again. There is scratching below and I hurry to reignite the wick.

He is here.

And I hear him cursing splinters.


	3. Much

**Valiant Splinters**

The destination no longer surprises.

When the forest had first welcomed us into its leafy bosom, I found little capacity for sleep. Hard ground and night sounds conspired to frighten me almost as much as the grimy new world outside our tents in the Holy Land. But nothing compared to the dreams, gripping me in a childish fear that would have caused no end to the ribbing from the strange men with which we'd fallen in. The visions brought forth stifled screams, ensuring name calling for months. My master alone would understand. He had them too.

Apparently here, as in Jerusalem, he had found a less than pure way to banish them.

I remember her from our childhood, a slight girl of lower class who could only play with us within the confines of the village. Never permitted onto Locksley grounds, she would often watch from the fence each time we departed for home. The look of unabashed longing had always dismayed me, though I admit to an unbecoming feeling of superiority. I was not forced to wait at that fence with her. I was a member of the noble household. I was above the villages.

Later, I came to realize that I originated from her level, which accounted for my dislike. She reminded me of my true status in life. A servant.

During those first few nights as an outlaw, I was the one standing at the proverbial fence, left behind to watch Robin sneak away from camp. Assuming he needed time to himself to handle the loss of his property and title, the longing to accompany him dismayed me. And I recalled the girl far more fondly.

Until the night I followed him. John had begun to notice, waking at the slightest stirring around him. Our leader vanished into the brush and I merely shrugged to the big man, who wisely kept his questions unvoiced. Try as I might to remain attached to the tree trunk I'd snuggled up with, duty impelled my legs to move. And move they did. In the wrong direction. Lost for the better part of 3 hours, the rising sun finally guided me back to camp. Not only hadn't I successfully tracked Robin, my lack of skill managing to produce a missed breakfast.

Several more attempts were made, and in this way I'd learned quite a bit about Sherwood Forest. Always Robin took a different trail or no trail at all. Eventually, certain trees actually became familiar, as touchstones along the path. I had presumed his journeys took him to Marian. But when we ended up on the outskirts of Locksley Manor I would have shrieked had I been able to breathe. Though frustration-relieving, it would have given me away. I could have saved many a moment of panic had I known this was his destination. This I could find with my eyes gouged out.

An acrobatic climb took him to the upper window of a tiny house. Recognizing this dwelling, my stomach churned in sudden illness. I watched as he dislodged the cloth of his pants from the rough and aged wood of the sill. When he slipped inside, his body no longer blocked the interior and her face entered my line of vision. By the dim light of her candle, I could see the slight girl had filled out rather handsomely. And I knew why he was here. Spitting the sickening venom from my mouth, I quickly departed. No further following would be required. That morning, I'd missed breakfast again, this time by choice. Those touchstone trees took a few kicks in my anger.

Having grown up with Robin, his substantial passions come as no shock. Young lust hit him early and a double portion had been grafted into him. By the time I'd experienced my first chaste kiss, I was already cautioning him about the dangers of bearing illegitimate children. The dalliances and folly carried into our adulthood, before the war turned his appetites into something darker. I stopped warning him about the sinister ways of foreign women, as wasted breath can not be reclaimed. Some part of me was relieved at his injury, once he pulled out of the fever anyway. We'd be sent home where the claws of bloody memories could be extricated from our minds. Foolishly, hope surfaced that marriage to his promised bride would tame his urges. But unless Marian renounced her position and safety, the expected wedding remained a fantasy. Along with my hope.

The destination no longer surprises.

Tonight, as the moon reaches its highest perch, I watch Robin take a cursory inventory of the sleeping men before rising. Allan's betrayal would drive him back to her, this I knew hours ago. I consider rising myself. Not to follow, but to hand him our last bread loaf. The girl was as a servant to his need and should be compensated. Until I see him reach down to claim the loaf. No reason to leave my tree stump and no point in standing at the fence. He'll be back, splinters and all.


	4. Marian

_This is the last chapter of what is expected to be my final Robin Hood post. Much appreciation to all who have given my tales a chance over the last few months. Your encouragement and kindness have been my inspiration._

_Be well, be blessed and smile._

_Zaedah_

**Valiant Splinters**

They think me a fool.

With my pretty hair complimenting my pretty gown covering my pretty shoes, they see the embodiment of pretty ignorance. The secrets of men are intended to glide untouched over the heads of our simpler gender. These times have rendered it improper for women to doubt the professed constancy of her mate. Yet many a new bride, having steadfastly guarded her virtue, clasps the hand of an unfaithful groom. The noble Lady Fitzwater is specifically expected to suffer blindness to the world, the one where lies are as commonplace as ale. But my love well knows my wits and perception are sharp. In the end, it is a matter of proof and my lacking it creates the illusion that no indiscretion exists. As though truth requires sight. Whatever disruption of vision I may possess is not forged by deception, but rather by choice.

They think me a fool.

Because I accept the prospect that another rests with my beloved this night. Because I am aware little resting will actually be accomplished. Because I love him regardless. Having known him in youth, I have watched the appeal of his lithe frame and free spirit entice the strictest girl to swoon. Blind, perhaps, but is that not how love is said to be? While I might pronounce that suspicions do not impact me, I will admit to a roaming eye of my own. Only not for suitors. Whether dressed as nobility at the castle or disguised in the Watchman's vengeful leather, I engage in daily tasks with an examining eye upon England's flock of females. In order to keep some vestige of sanity, I turn the inescapable gazes into a game. Telling myself I can discern his preference in a lover, women are quickly sorted by first impression: This one's too red. That one's just thin enough. Too timid. Lovely features. Awfully tall. A laugh pleasantly warm. A sob gratingly false. Married. Seeking. In truth, it could be any combination of features that draw him to someone, but intuition assuages thoughts of multiple interests. No, my love is capable of singular devotion and therefore I believe there is but one. And I apply pardon on the basis that the dalliances may not be performed under his complete control. For such a strong, determined leader, he can be so easily led.

They think me a fool.

Even as I submit to the work of unsought forgiveness, I fear. Should the conclusion of present turmoil result in our marriage, how might I be certain he will not stray? How will I know that I am enough? Far too much reflection has been committed to explorations of my shortcomings, holding them up to the sullied lamp of an experienced woman. I possess no special skill in private matters, being innocent in this one area of life. Perhaps I will disappoint when the emotion of love does not equate to physical satisfaction.

They think me a fool.

Because I speak not of indiscretion, lips untainted by accusations or gossip. Perhaps he relies upon my careful silence to redeem him. I never ask, so he will not be forced to lie. I never ask, so he will not be tempted to tell me the truth. There remains a possibility that this folly is the product of lonely imaginings. In my longing for him, have I created a rival? But when his fury is beheld, I cannot help questioning what manner of relief is employed. I have not known him to find calmness within and must wander what source is being dredged to provide it.

He thinks me no fool.

We have been known to disagree.


End file.
